What is Love
by RamblingPug
Summary: In the love story of the strong, scowling hero and the beautiful maiden, most things are simply a cliche. But when a 'villain' is back from the dead and begins to ask certain questions, the age old story is bound to change. Strong elements of both Ichihime AND Ulquihime. Mature themes.


Prologue(sort of)

Pairing : Ichihime (Kurosaki Ichigo x Inoue Orihime) , Ulquihime (Ulquiorra x Orihime)

A/N : So I'm embarrassingly new to this fandom, and I've been so shy to write for this ship(s?) but this story's been stuck in my head for the longest time.

* * *

Their love story is every bit a cliché.

It is a story of your usually ill-tempered hero and the fair, pure-hearted heroine, who inspire admiration and jealousy from all those surrounding them. It is a tale that has been told countless times, the names and the years changed, but most remain the same.

His name is Kurosaki Ichigo, a young not-so-gentle-man whose brattishness and strength is known far and wide, especially in the spirit realm, who has saved the very peace that protects their existence on multiple occasions. A scowl is something of permanent residence on his features, but on rare occasions his handsome face is graced with a smile, a twinkle in his auburn eyes, a blush staining across his sculpted cheeks. These ephemeral rareties are reserved for a special time, a private presence with the maiden whose mere sight is enough to soften him.

She is as beautiful as the fairytale, long fire burnt tresses brushing the generous curve of her hips. Her name, despite her humble bearing, is Inoue Orihime, a name fit for a is obvious, but it must be written – the way she is coveted by every straight male in the institution and admired and hated equally by the women.

This tale has no mentions of splendid knights on beautiful horses, mages who tame dragons or innocent princesses born with the ability to converse with nature. There is only a Shinigami and a magic Healer, but their love is true as the old stories, only marred with the charming obliviousness of their late teenage years.

As with any great tale, it is morphed to their time and surroundings and this one, as befitting of the modern age, is set in a high school, in a town as simple as any other, with boys and girls ridden by hormones, teen anxiety and _secrets._

Now as the cliché demands, we have the appearance of a… _villain_, if you will, shrouded in darkness, an intense, fear-inspiring creature gifted with the most terrifying beauty. This villain, it turns out was only serving a higher lord with a darker purpose, the age-old predictable but bone-chilling threat of destroying the _world. _One part of the evil lord's sordid scheme was to kidnap the lovely heroine – an effort that seemed too easy, for it required little more than hinting that her loved ones were in danger.

But not to worry dear readers, our beloved hero valiantly vanquished the evil that threatened them all and rescued his damsel in distress, just in the nick of time.

Soon all was well again, and the peace was restored and the happy twosome confessed their undying love for each other and rode off into the sunset… Or locked themselves up in the bedroom and had super-hot thank-you-for-saving-me sex and lived happily ever after. Whichever you would prefer.

..

..

..

Well that is how it would have ended, a happy ending in every sense of the term, had it truly been just another fairytale…

But it is at this point that we see that their story digresses from the unthrilling skeleton of a cliché. Rather, Before they even work up the courage to share their feelings with each other or experience the joys of a first kiss, they have stumbled into the fag end of high school and the busy humdrum of entrance examinations.

They attend the remaining days of school not because they have to, but because it's an excuse to spend their last few weeks with their friends… and each other.

Now, this story seems to bear no distractions from the central theme of their eternal love… None except for the fact that this story is _not _in fact, a cliché, because there is no age old love story that bears a silent, deadly spectator raised from the very depth of nightmares, the same fearful entity who has escaped death even when it dragged him out by his hair. There should be no creature who watches her, day and night, every single second with an intensity that would burn anything in the line of his olive gaze.

But there _is._

And he watches her, he watches _them, _her friends, every single person she had ever deemed a loved one. For a normal person these are the symptoms of maniacal obsession, but to Ulquiorra, he's merely just observing, understanding, trying to figure out something _strange _the girl told him long ago.

Something that has dragged him back from the very clutches of death and back into the world of living.

He watches her make her way out of the wrought iron gate of the school, bag slung playfully over her shoulder. He takes in the way her hips sway when she moves, a silent rhythm only she knows the beat to. Some boys stutter, the others stare, but most have a somewhat similar train of thought : _won't that skirt go any higher?_

_It's amusing, these humans and their fixation on the unattainable, _he thinks, and he_ almost _smirks_._

But he's not the only one who's watching their faces, there's one other, the reason Inoue Orihime is so pointlessly unattainable , bathed in angry sunlight, a gaze far more respectful – but forcefully so – someone who positively _seethes_ at their less-than-discreet visual intrusions.

But he keeps his calm and with the utmost grace of a gentleman, he offers to walk with her.

He watches her fumble when she is with him, so terribly conscious when they are alone together, a matching blush sprouting on both of them as they make their way home after school.

The blush deepens when Ichigo suggests they stop for ice cream, just a ploy on his part to spend a few minutes longer, taking advantage of her weakness for the treat.

He listens to their friends whisper, excited gossip filling the air as they head out of the school campus. _Looks like Ichigo's finally going to ask her out, _the short one says. _I think he's going to ask her to go to the same college with him._

_It's cute, _they seem to agree and even though they cannot resist the subconscious bout of jealousy, they're happy to see their friend's head has finally been turned.

He's seen the best friend too, the dark haired little one who can throw a mean punch, eyeing Ichigo disapprovingly every time he talks to her. But he's also seen the heartbreak, the slightest splinter of the smile she forces for her beloved Orihime when she listens to her gush about her love. She listens and smiles and teases her… But not once does she say the words in her heart, not once does she confess how much she truly wishes that the beautiful healer would look at _her_ that way.

He watches all of them patiently, soaking in their silent gazes which scream their feelings to everyone who would only look twice. There is pain and sadness, helplessness and crushing desperation, but there are also some smiles which are genuine, some laughter that rings true, concern that comes naturally to these people he watches constantly, bearing no heed to their supposed privacy.

They choose their icecreams, chocolate for him and strawberry for her and he notices the way Ichigo's eyes linger when her tongue darts out, lapping gently at the pink confection. She can feel his gaze on hers, and it evokes and answering heat in her, causing the ice cream to melt clumsily. Raising a finger to her mouth she sucks on the sweet liquid and he inhales sharply. "Kurosaki-kun?" she asks, because he's still looking at her and _not _eating _his _ice cream and it's now dripping deliciously all over his hands. Her teeth sink into her lower lip, a defense mechanism of sorts because she can think of nothing more delicious than eating the icecream right off of him. "Is something wrong?"

He racks his brain for the appropriate, _decent _way to tell her that this frustration is driving him crazy, that when he's with her these days he can think of little more than pressing his lips to hers and tasting her, but it would seem that today, just like all the other days in the past two years, was just _not _the right day.

"Yo Ichigo," comes a familiar loud voice from behind, startling him so thoroughly that he completely loses grip on his ice cream cone and it goes tumbling out of his hands and right onto Orihime's already semi-transparent school blouse. _Shit._

It takes a second for the cold to seep through to her skin, making her realise what had just happened. "Sorry, Inoue," he mumbles desperately, feeling helpless because he's pretty sure helping her clean up the top left side of her blouse, which is now straining thanks to the wetness of the icecream, is definitely a top example of misbehaving with women. And how much ever he's thought of misbehaving with her – he maybe the hero of the story but he _is _just a horny teenager after all – he thinks maybe that stuff could wait till he at least tells her how he feels about her.

"Hey Inoue," Rukia continues, as if Orihime's shirt were not almost completely transparent by now and the two of them had _not_ just experienced the most mortifying moment ever. "Ooh Strawberry! Can I have some?"

She blinks up at him, and slowly peals of laughter escape her little mouth. He begins to laugh along, because this whole thing is absolutely ridiculous, he's just spilt ice cream on the girl he's in love with and he's certain their time together has been interrupted by hollow duty anyway.

Handing the petite Shinigami the remains of her ice cream, she digs into her bag and fishes out a little tissue and wipes at the big chocolate mess on the front of her tshirt. "I'm really sorry," he says again, averting his eyes from the sight of her gingerly trying to brush her top, pointedly ignoring the way she dabbed at the swell of her breasts.

"Time to go," Rukia declares and Ichigo groans, because _perfect timing, really._

Her beloved Kurosaki doesn't see the way her smile splinters, but he does. He watches everything, including the barrage of insecurity that plows through her mind when he turns, leaving Orihime with only his body.

"You still haven't told her?" Rukia asks exasperatedly, when they're done with their precious 'Hollow Time'. "I was going to," he retorts, "Up until a certain someone ruined the whole moment."

She rolls her eyes. "You didn't look like you were planning to say anything," she points out. "If I had just left you there you would have stared at her chest forever."

..

Night falls soon, and he continues his spectator sport, watching from the darkness closes to her, intruding in the most unsuspecting manner, breathing her own personal space without her knowledge.

Brushing the hair out of her face, he studies her face, just as he has done a thousand times before… maybe more?

When he realised that in all this while, it was only he who had noticed the cracks on the surface, he had wanted to laugh. But he's come to realize they are not cracks, they are wedges which have been driven bone deep by something which has held so much power over her once, a very long time ago.

She's clever, this girl, raising her walls so high under the façade of being simple and open and so very normal that no one would_ ever_ dream of her secret.

But normal is not the word you would use to define someone whose thoughts cut so deep that she has become unafraid of being hurt by others.

_It doesn't matter what she thinks._

He runs a finger along the curve of her cheekbone, caressing the softness of her skin. His reiatsu is cloaked so well, it feels nothing more than a breeze whispering from the open window. This time, he presses harder, his fingernail digging into her skin, small carmine beads of blood forming where the tissue has broken.

The blood drips, forming tiny, elegant rivulets dawn her pale skin, blotting on to the sheets.

He could hurt her.

_He would hurt her._

Her eyelids flutter ever so slightly and she whimpers, but she has known pain far, _far _worse than this so the sting isn't nearly enough to wake her up.

But he wants to see her awake, eyes jolting open with fresh fear in her eyes and the smell of terrified perspiration on her skin.

His hands close in around her neck, gripping her tightly and she _still _doesn't wake, only lifts her head obediently, allowing herself to be crushed. He almost laughs when she leans in, savouring the warmth of anyone, anything, something that she's denied herself of for the longest time, seeking desperately to protect the shards of herself that she strings up together.

Because that is all she is, _pieces,_ so many of them, even though she strings them up carefully, over and over, fooling herself into believing that she is indeed whole.

It isn't till he squeezes firmly till her eyelids flutter open, conscious of the air leaving her passageway, choking with tears.

He leaves her instantly, retreating to the darkness from where he has watched her for so long. His eyes narrow_. _She struggles to catch her breath again, reaching desperately for a bottle of water. It is a human's most striking quality, this tenacity to live. But or some reason it surprises him to see it in her.

_Is this the heart that she speaks of?_

_The mythical entity that holds her to this life even though her eyes scream to be shut indefinitely?_

_It doesn't matter,_ he thinks, rubbing his fingers gingerly, the warmth of her heated skin strange against his cool fingertips.

He could break her.

_He would break her._

A/N : was it a mess? is it worth continuing? if you're reading then please do let me know. :)


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